SHAFR Conference Prize Announcements, 2023 

At this year’s awards presentation at the SHAFR Conference, we recognized some of the best scholarship of the previous year, determined by some of SHAFR’s hardest working volunteers on our prize committees. 

NARA Research Rooms Fully Open

Required research appointments ensure enough space and an improved research experience.

There's less a month left to submit nominations for the 2023 SHAFR election!

The upcoming election will fill the following positions:

By way of Lee White at the National Coalition for History:

POLITICO- White House declassification review delayed

By JOSH GERSTEIN, ALEXANDER WARD, MATT BERG and ARI HAWKINS 

May 10 2023

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) today announced bipartisan legislation to reform the security classification system in order to reduce overclassification, prevent mishandling of classified information, promote better use of intelligence, and enhance public trust.

“The government systematically overclassifies too much information, at a dangerous cost to both the nation’s security and the public trust.  At the same time, we too often fail to protect the nation’s most important secrets.  As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I think it is clear that our security classification system is badly in need of change,” said Sen. Warner. “Given the explosion in digital records, the status quo is no longer tenable.  We’ve got too many people with access to a system that is devoid of accountability and has grown increasingly byzantine, bureaucratic, and outmoded. We need to protect our national security secrets, and then declassify those secrets when protections are no longer necessary.  It’s time for Congress to take action and establish accountability.”

National Archives Press Release

Shogan Confirmed by U.S. Senate as 11th Archivist of the United States

June 3, 2023 from 2-5:30 PM at the Gatton Student Center Grant Ballroom, University of Kentucky

Celebration of Life Invitation

Conference: The New International Economic Order. Lessons and Legacies 50 Years Late 

May 10-11, 2024. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy

SHAFR and NARA: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides several resources for SHAFR members and other researchers who have questions about NARA  or who want to prepare for a research visit. NARA's External Affairs Liaison, Meg Phillips, organizes regular meetings between NARA leaders and history associations like SHAFR. You can contact SHAFR leadership with a question or concern that you'd like them to discuss with NARA at these meetings. If you have questions about NARA as an organization, if you need help finding the right NARA office or person, or if you need information about NARA policies, you can also contact Meg directly at [email protected]. She is happy to help.

To prepare for a research trip, check out NARA's "Getting Started" and "FAQ"pages. You should complete the researcher orientation slides and online researcher application that are required before getting a researcher card.

ASIL 117th Annual Meeting Invitation [PDF]

Annual Meeting 2023 Flyer [PDF]

Deadline for both is March 20:

• Brady-Johnson Predoctoral Fellowship https://apply.interfolio.com/121255
• Kissinger Predoctoral Fellowship https://apply.interfolio.com/121153

Call for Papers

MOSEC Conference, 18-20 May 2023

SHAFR Statement on What Congress Can Do to Address the Mismanagement of Public Records

Safeguarding classified material is a national challenge that must be confronted by Congress and the Executive branch, both to protect national security and ensure democratic accountability. Long before the current controversy, it was clear that neither the Presidential Records Act nor the Federal Records Act were preventing the concealment, removal, and mutilation of public records.

The mishandling of classified documents continues to make headlines, first with the FBI's Aug. 2022 raid of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and, more recently, with the revelation that classified documents had been found at President Biden's private office and also in his home. Historian Matthew Connelly says one reason we see problems like this is that far too many government records are being categorized as "classified."

On average, Connelly says, records are marked as classified three times every second, generating so many secret documents that it's practically impossible to preserve them all.

Call for Proposals:
Peace & Protest, Past & Present
Peace History Society Conference
October 26-28, 2023 

Gwynedd Mercy University
Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania